Lights, Camera, Safety: Five Forklift Safety Accessories Your Team Can’t Live Without

Forklift accidents cause 75 to 95 deaths and 8,000 to 9,000 serious injuries annually.

In fact, one in six workplace deaths involves a forklift. Yet, OSHA predicts 70% of those accidents are avoidable. In other words, enhanced forklift safety could save more than 50 lives every single year.

Improving forklift safety doesn’t require massive, expensive overhauls.

Often, it comes down to a few common-sense safety upgrades tailored to your facility’s individual needs. While there is no perfect safety solution when it comes to forklifts, there are popular accessories that can make your warehouse safer and more productive practically overnight.

Read on to learn the top five forklift safety accessories your team can’t live without.

1. Forklift Camera Systems

A blocked field of view is a common challenge for forklift operators.

Forklift designs do their best to improve visibility, but some obstructions are unavoidable. Where the field of view is a challenge, forklift cameras are the solution. The variety of cameras available has exploded over the last several years, and the technology continues to improve.

Consequently, adding safety cameras to your lift trucks has never been easier.

Fork Guidance Cameras

Fork guidance cameras are the gold standard in fork positioning.

Models, such as the aptly named Eagle-Eye forklift camera system, let the operator see at fork level. This offers unparalleled positioning accuracy and helps prevent damage caused by accidental bumps. Additionally, these camera systems improve operator confidence, allowing them to work faster without sacrificing safety.

Some models even protect the camera from impacts and weather, making them suitable for indoor/outdoor use.

Multi-Angle Forklift Cameras

If an operator can’t have eyes in the back of their head, multi-angle cameras are the next best thing.

These cameras allow an operator to shift between multiple views, giving close to 360 degrees of visibility. This superior coverage helps eliminate blind spots and improve situational awareness.

All of the above directly translates to fewer collisions.

Proximity Cameras

Proximity cameras are a variety of forklift pedestrian collision avoidance systems.

They use various technologies to track movement around the forklift and alert the operator when an obstacle or pedestrian gets too close. While some forklift manufacturers offer their own proprietary models, not all forklifts are compatible with these designs.

For many forklifts, a third-party system, such as Bat Sonar, is an excellent option.

The Bat Sonar brand uses radar technology to detect obstacles and pedestrians. When paired with their cameras, this system provides both audible and visual warnings before impending collisions. Additionally, since the system relies on radar rather than video-based movement recognition, this proximity alert system is available without a camera or a digital display.

While that configuration is more budget-friendly, it doesn't improve the field of view.

2. Fork Guidance Systems

One of the trickiest parts of forklift operation is safely inserting and withdrawing the forks from its loads.

Obstructions and height make this difficult, threatening your racks, products, and associates. While some forklift camera systems help, other, more budget-friendly tools can remove some of the guesswork.

These three categories are some of the easiest and most popular upgrades.

Quick-Install Fork Levelers

Level forks are vital for loading and unloading pallet racks.

Unleveled forks can skewer product from below, dislodge pallets, or even damage racks. Yet, when viewed from the ground, judging fork position can be challenging. Fork levelers provide constant, real-time updates on fork position, reducing error. These simple upgrades mean warehouse safety no longer depends on an operator’s ability to eyeball the true level.

Better still, models like the Accu-Tilt can be installed in as little as 2 minutes.

Fork Height Guides

Even with level forks, maneuvering pallets at height can be challenging.

With all eyes on the ground, the driver must carefully approach racks to avoid bumping them with forks that are too low or displacing pallets with forks held too high. Height guides are a simple sticker system that takes about 15 minutes to install.

Once attached, these guides help operators find the correct rack heights more quickly, improving productivity and safety.

Fork Laser Guides

Laser guides create a visible line that indicates fork position.

This simple visual reference makes aligning forks as easy as matching up the laser with the load. These systems are compact, easy to install, and have long battery lives.

Laser guides are one of the simplest upgrades for fork positioning.

3. Forklift Bumpers

Bumpers are a kind of collision protection that moves with the forklift.

These guards come in a wide variety of options for installation on almost all forklift surfaces, regardless of the model. Forklift front guards and carriage bumpers are a popular subset of bumpers designed to protect these impact-prone sites from damage.

Most bumpers install in minutes and dramatically reduce structural damage from forklift collisions.

4. Forklift Pedestrian Safety

According to OSHA, approximately 20% of all forklift accidents and 36% of forklift-related deaths involve a pedestrian.

Consequently, pedestrian safety accessories are one of the most significant upgrades you can make to your forklifts. Many forklift upgrades improve pedestrian safety.

However, there are a few items that work outside the forklift to keep both the driver and pedestrians safe.

Laser Lines

A busy warehouse destroys floor tape and paint.

Constant travel and working conditions conspire to either erode safety lines or cover them up. Laser lines are an easy solution. These bright yet safe lasers project a visible line across floors and asphalt, allowing you to mark crosswalks, travel corridors, and more. Since the line is laser light, forklift traffic won't wear it away, and dust can't cover it up.

These simple tools make lane markings that remain visible longer, even in low-light conditions.

Motion Detection Warning Lights

Blind intersections present a special hazard in busy warehouses.

These intersections make it difficult for both forklifts and pedestrians to see each other, increasing the likelihood of an accident. However, motion-detection warning lights help raise awareness for everyone involved. Models like the LOOK-OUT 4-Way use motion sensors to monitor traffic on all sides of an intersection. When it detects movement, the lights flash, indicating someone or something is just around the corner.

Simple caution lights like these are easy to install and help your whole team avoid dangerous collisions.

Speed Alert Radar Systems

Speed kills both on the highway and in the warehouse.

Yet, when time is tight and the pressure is on, it's easy for drivers to get tunnel vision. The demands of high-throughput facilities can encourage operators to work quickly. As they focus on their tasks, travel speed often creeps toward dangerous levels.

Often, a simple reminder is the solution.

Speed alert radar systems monitor aisles for forklifts traveling at unsafe speeds and remind the drivers to slow down with a simple illuminated message. Operators don't want an accident any more than you do. So, a gentle alert helps recalibrate priorities and prevents potential catastrophe.

For added awareness, these systems can include flashing lights or audible buzzers.

5. Forklift Safety Lights

Forklift pedestrian safety lights are a subset of other pedestrian safety accessories worth noting.

These lights offer a visual warning to pedestrians. Depending on the variety, they can indicate a forklift’s travel direction, mark off hazard zones, or simply indicate a forklift’s presence.

Safety lights come in many forms, but they generally fall into one of three categories.

Forklift Blue Lights

Despite their common name, these lights come in both red and blue.

Regardless of the color, they indicate a forklift's direction of travel. They mount directly on the truck and project a spot of colored light about ten to twenty feet awayon the floor. This light gives pedestrians advanced warning of a forklift's movement even before they can see the lift truck, preventing potentially lethal impacts. However, the direction of movement isn't always obvious for stationary forklifts because most blue lights cast a circular or rectangular pattern.

To solve this, some models project more intuitive directional indicators.

The Arrow Blue Light is one such model. As the moniker suggests, it casts a bright directional arrow on warehouse floors. This simple upgrade helps keep your staff safe even when a forklift is temporarily still.

For the price, these are one of the best safety upgrades you can make.

Forklift Halo Lights

Halo lights, like the Arc Light brand, encircle a forklift in warning lights.

Unlike blue lights, halo lights don't indicate travel. Instead, they demarcate the area around the forklift as hazardous. These units project red lights onto the floor and provide pedestrians with a clear visual reference, indicating where it is safe to walk. These lights come in several configurations, offering different levels of coverage. However, we recommend the halo configuration.

Halo lights pair well with blue lights for organizations that are serious about pedestrian safety.

Forklift Warning Lights

In especially noisy warehouses, a forklift’s presence is surprisingly easy to miss.

Warning lights, sometimes called pedestrian awareness lights, provide a visual alert for all pedestrians in the area. Amber lights are one of the most common varieties, but other styles are available. For example, the P.A.L. features both front and rear warning lights. The front lights are white, and the back are red, similar to the lights on a car.

This intuitive system gives pedestrians advanced warning while also alerting them to their position relative to the forklift.

Expert Forklift Safety Consultants

As we said at the start, there’s no perfect forklift safety accessory.

Each accessory addresses a specific forklift safety challenge, and each warehouse will face different challenges. To maximize your upgrades without busting your budget, you need expert help. That’s where we come in.

With over one hundred years in the industry, we’ve seen it all.

Our experts can assess your needs, make recommendations, and supply you with the best safety accessories on the market to protect your team. With our help, you can save lives while improving productivity. Let’s work together to make your forklift fleet the safest it can be.

To learn more about forklift safety accessories, contact us online or visit one of our locations:

Arkansas - Jonesboro
Alabama - Dothan, Irondale, Mobile, and Montgomery
Georgia - Atlanta
Mississippi - Richland and Tupelo
Tennessee - Jackson and Memphis

Further Reading
Forklift Safety Accessories Catalog
Forklift Drivers: Seat Belts Forklift Safety Accessories
OSHA Forklift Pedestrian Safety 101: Enhance Safety Around Forklifts